Pastimes of the Invisible Girl
by LoweFantasy
Summary: Toru's superpower is as guardian of secrets, including many of her own, one of which is her crush on a certain explosive boy who has no secrets of his own. But Toru doesn't do romance. After all, boys like a girl they can see.
1. Nicknames

Pastimes of the Invisible Girl

By LoweFantasy

1

When no one looked, Toru recorded clever or hilarious insults in her diary-if one could call it that. She had been getting juicy ones since starting high school, thanks to a particularly explosive classmate.

'_Take a hint, Shark Week, and go and chew on someone else's nerves!'_

She giggled in her throat, silently, a talent she had acquired since finding her sense of humor wasn't exactly kind. Of course she didn't find it funny when other people were hurt (she _was_ in the hero course), but there was something about the upfront abrasiveness of well-thought-out insults that tickled her fancy.

It probably had to do with the fact that she was invisible.

Bakugo, who had just snapped said one-liner, was still gnashing his teeth at said "Shark Week," his still smiling friend.

"Jeeze, Kirishima, why do you even bother?" said Mina from beside her.

"Despite what you may think," said the red-haired boy, slinging an arm around the neck of a feral Bakugo. "Katsuki-chan's super manly and pure. He always says what he means."

"I'm gonna kill you!" snarled said manly pure.

Toru had to slap an invisible hand to her nose to stifle the snort.

"Aw, come off it, Kaachan. I'm sorry for making you uncomfortable-"

"Uncomfortable is the least of it!" A beat. "DON'T CALL ME KAACHAN, DAMMIT!"

"Jeeze, do you always have to belt everything?" asked Jiro from a few seats away. From the way she had a hand to her ear, Toru suspected she had an earache. Something she was more prone to due to her hearing based Quirk.

"Uh oh, you said the no-no word. Only Midoriya can call him Kaachan," said Kaminari lazily, blowing a bubble with his gum and scratching at a tuft of his spiked blond hair.

"Can it, Pikachu!"

Midoriya slouched down in his seat, hiding his face behind his textbook.

"What did you ask him?" asked a bemused Ochaco.

Bakugo stiffened. "Don't you dare-"

"Just if he's ever had a girlfriend."

Every part of Bakugo seemed to rise like the hackles on a wolf...or the prickles on an adorable hedgehog, thought Toru.

"I doubt it," said Mina. "What girl would put up with him?"

"Does he even like girls?" whispered Mineta from the other side of the classroom. Toru had very good ears.

"Why is he even upset about that?" asked Momo with a cock of her head.

"Because my love life is nobody's damn business!"

"Seriously, can you speak at a normal volume for one damn day?!" snapped Jiro again from the front.

"I talk how I want!"

Toru reached for her diary just as Jiro twisted violently in her seat towards Bakugo and Akizawa-sensi stepped through the door.

"Quiet down," he drawled.

They all did so, though Mr. BlastFist kicked his foot against his desk and leaned back in his chair, default scowl in place. Akizawa didn't even spare him a glance.

'_Pikachu, Kaminari,' _wrote Toru. If only she could come up with nicknames on the fly like that.

Class went rather boring that day. They ended up watching a documentary about the development of the code of laws governing hero work and the need for licensing. It was amazing to Toru how someone could make murders and crimes sound like tofu left out in the sun a little too long, let alone be able to sell said documentary to the best school on this side of the country.

She yawned. Scratched her face. And fell into her next favorite pastime: classmate watching.

Being invisible had its quirks. Unless she was wearing sunglasses, no one could tell what she was looking at or what she was doing with her face. When her quirk had first kicked in when she was five (a year later than the usual), she had taken advantage of it and had all sorts of fun pulling faces and rude hand gestures at all her bullies. That being said, it still occurred to her bullies that she was quietly insulting them, even when she wasn't, and her joy had been short-lived.

She took her time, not wanting to run out of updates on her classmates before the video was over. Mineta had his phone opened up in his desk on low-light. She didn't linger too long there. You didn't have to be invisible to see what that creep got up to in his secret hours. Per the usual, Midoriya and Iida were the only ones alert and taking down notes as though the droning narrator didn't have a voice to neutralize insomniacs. Ochaco was drooling a little bit, as was want to happen sometimes when her mind completely checked out (Toru actually loved that about her friend-it was hilarious!). Jiro had her face in her desk, hands once more over her sore ears. The rest had mirroring levels of boredom, sadly, without the drool.

She left her favorite for last. Despite acting like a complete wacko, Bakugo actually looked like he was paying attention, though without the nerdy fervor of Midoriya and Iida. He did so still leaning back his chair, hands stuffed in his pockets, and his lower lip jutted out. She observed, with a smile, that the foot he had propped onto his desk had a clean slipper that didn't leave a single mark or speck of dust on its surface.

She put her invisible fingers to her grin. _Such a good boy._

Oh how he would deny it until something ended up destroyed by his hands, all his efforts to not trail dust into the school ruined. Toru couldn't get enough of it.

But it did get her thinking as she sat at her pink vanity and brushed her hair (even if she was invisible, watching the brush move in the mirror was somehow meditative, especially since her curls became untameable and had to be cut out if she didn't keep them well brushed). She'd seen all the boys have a reaction of one kind or another towards girls, but never Bakugo. He reacted the same no matter the gender. She'd heard her friends mutter on separate occasions to this being yet more evidence that he was the most boorish man alive and would never get a wife, but Toru saw it in a different light. Out of all the boys in the class, Bakugo may be the only one who saw men and women as truly equal-or unequal, since the default nickname for most of them was 'extras.'

It made her smile. Who did he think he was? The hero of an epic film? Why 'extras' and not 'nobodies'? And why did he see fit to call anyone nicknames at all? Was it really because he didn't bother to remember their names? That would be hilariously arrogant.

Humming, she reached down and slipped out her secret diary from her backpack and cracked it open.

"Let's see," she slid her finger down the page. "Midoriya is 'Deku' or 'Shitty-Nerd' of course…"

It took only a few seconds before she was giggling, and this time out loud.

'Glitter Fuck,' he had called Aoyama. "I could never say that, that's horrible!" And she giggled even harder. "So glittery…"

Yeah. She was probably a horrible person finding these so funny.

But, then, most were horrible people.

Avoiding that thought, she skimmed back a few pages in her book for a happier memory. Comedy was, after all, the best key to bleaching out your brain of stupid depressing thoughts.

'I was once more using my shoes to make sure no one barged in on me using the toilet,' she read, her memory tingling with anticipation. When had she written this? 'When a girl took the stall next to me and begun to grunt the most polite cussings whenever she would let out the tiniest of farts even though the bathroom was empty. 'Oh 'Lanta,' 'Gracious me,' 'Oh my.' After just a few of these, she couldn't hold it in anymore and let it all out. The roar of her defecating was spectacular, but not nearly as much as her loud, almost orgasmic exclamation-'

Toru had to stop to throw her head back and laugh, even while she felt humiliated for that woman, as well as her choice of words-but she couldn't think of any better word to describe it.

Beginning to feel her side cramping, Toru closed her diary and all but limped onto her bed from her efforts to contain her giggles after turning off her lights.

"Bakugo would have thought of better words to describe it," she said, and no sooner had she thought it than she was rolling back and forth with laughter so loud, her mother would have been ashamed.

Eventually, her laughter wore down, and she found herself staring up at the squares of orange light on the ceiling from the campus below. The shadows stared back, comforting as friends never could be. It hid everything, not just the invisible.

"I wonder what kind of nickname he would give me," she said.

Nothing she thought of after that could make her laugh.

**Credit to ThePastelHoodie from Wattpad for some of Bakugo's nicknames**


	2. Secrets Only Hide the Hurt

2

Toru's beloved Aunt Melissa kissed her new husband, and pandemonium erupted. Hats, flowers, and in someone's case a dog-leash, flew into the air with a rather irreverent cheer for a chapel.

Caught up in the loudness, as most six-year-olds would be, Toru jumped to her feet and whooped as loudly as she could.

"Toru!" snapped her mother, tugging on the floating puffy pink skirt of her invisible daughter. "Just because everyone else-"

But Toru didn't hear the rest, as she took another moment to shriek, which echoed over everyone.

Face flushed, her very visible mother scooped up the floating dress and little shoes and carted her out. Toru felt her mass of curls crowding her face, but, being invisible, they did nothing to impair her vision. They did, however, fill her mouth, and she spent the next thirty seconds spitting out hair.

The floating dress and shoes were landed roughly in a corner by a window in the foyer.

"You," said her mother, "will stay here and quiet, do you understand me? You're damn invisible, so for once, work with it! And in a chapel of all things…"

Toru instantly felt ashamed. She reached up to bring the curls she had just fought off back into her face to hide, an old habit she had had before her quirk had kicked in four months previously.

Her hair had been red. Not orange like most gingers, but bright, brilliant red.

She missed it.

Huffing, still pink in the face, her equally ginger mother stomped back into the chapel. As the door closed behind her, Toru managed to catch a glimpse of her favorite aunt floating down the aisle towards her, her eyes on her husband.

Toru leaned left and right to see if she could catch something in the spaces around the doors (something she had learned existed recently), but these doors weren't like the ones at home. They were heavy and well placed, with no spaces in sight.

Pouting, she settled back against the stones. Goosebumps erupted over her skin at their chill.

For an eternity that could have been only a few minutes, as time works for young children, Toru stood stalwartly, like a good little girl. But one could only listen to the happy voices for so long before the pain of missing out on so much excitement and prettiness (for the wedding had been so pretty! Sparkly dress, flowers, shoes!), became too much for her. Checking her surroundings, Toru quickly wiggled out of her dress and shoes, tucking them behind a flowerpot, and skittered off, the thrill of air on her bare behind just as thrilling as the first time she had dared this.

She ran about the outside hall around the chapel to the side door-it made her feel sneakier. The side doors were also smaller, less...grand and obvious. She shimmied in the smallest crack she could-

Only to find, not the chapel, but another room. One with a tall mirror, hangers of dresses, bags, and the remains of a serious makeup and hair session.

She only had a moment to be confused before the sounds of voices behind her sent her scurrying to a corner to press herself against. She had to stop herself from hiding in the curtains. Invisible didn't mean her body didn't exist. Out of the way was the best hiding spot.

Moments later, none other than the beautiful bride stepped in, waving off her bridesmaids, and as white and glittery as a snow covered mountain.

Toru watched, star struck, as her aunt waved off the others, protesting she needed a moment to let it sink in on her own, with the biggest smile, before closing the door.

Just as Toru began to wonder at her luck that she finally got to talk to her favorite aunt-who would have laughed at her scream rather than blushed-her aunt's smile fell away and she sunk down to the floor in a poof of taffeta.

The glitters on her veil ceased to glitter. The sunlight didn't reach the bottom of the door.

Aunt Melissa burst into tears.

Stunned and more bewildered than ever, Toru felt her own eyes start to burn and her throat hurt. Oh no! Had her scream caused this? Was this why Mama was so mad?

It was this fear that kept Toru quiet as she watched her Auntie cry.

A knock came at the door.

"Mel," came a quiet, male voice.

The bride stiffened.

"I'll be right there!" she said in a cheery voice.

"Mel, I can hear you…"

Her aunt said nothing to that.

After some coaxing through the door, Aunt Melissa eventually stood up and let in a young man who Toru had seen with the groom-one of the groomsmen in his matching tie and waistcoat. Toru had especially liked the shiny material of the waistcoats and had wanted to touch them so badly-

The man grabbed her aunt and proceeded to kiss her.

It wasn't all that long before the kiss started to look really weird to Toru, far weirder than what she understood should be a kiss. For one, he pressed her up against a wall and they started to look like they were trying to eat each other's faces. When they started to moan, like they were hurt or sick, Toru's face became really, really hot. Now instead of crying, she was trying really hard not to laugh.

Eventually, they did stop, though not before grabbing at each other's no-no bits and just being overall weird. Then, once he had wiped away her tears, he left, leaving Aunt Melissa no longer crying, so...that was good.

Though it still made Toru feel really weird to watch her Aunt Melissa as she kissed and hugged her new husband instead of the other man. The other guy, who had tried to eat her face, seemed kind of hurt by it, though he smiled and laughed with everyone else and talked lovey-dovey stuff.

Eventually Toru's mom would find her discarded dress and shoes and send the whole bridal party searching for her naked, invisible daughter, but that part at least was fun-in a terrifying kind of way.


	3. About Boys

3

Toru was probably the only one who knew Mina liked to sneak into Kirishima's room.

In her elderly and wise opinion, having high school boys and girls in the same building let alone on the same plot of land during sleeping hours was a bad idea. Granted, yes, they all knew the halls and outside the first floor had enough cameras to make even Mineta think twice about sneaking where he shouldn't, but these were also teenagers training to be innovative and resourceful...and daring.

Which meant crawling around two to four stories off the ground on one foot wide of windowsill to sneak into each other's rooms.

Granted, Toru was lucky in part to hear Mina squeak as her foot slipped. But mostly it was because Toru had already been trying out her own luck sneaking around naked on the windows. Afterall, the cameras would be able to see if her door would have opened, but not her window.

She had enough practice to keep her laugh silent as she watched her pink friend, lip bit, sweat everywhere, slide down a floor to her probable death-except she caught onto the railing on his windowsill like a pro and pulled herself up to knock like nothing had happened. Kirishima's face on seeing her through the window had been adorable.

Just to screw with her, and also because she was honestly worried, Toru slid some birth control she'd bought the next morning underneath Mina's door. Like Toru would have something like that on hand. The day Toru trusted some gross boy that close was, like, never.

Afterall, what guy would like let alone stay loyal to a girl he couldn't see?

She was also probably one of the few who knew that only three boys in their class didn't have a porn stash of any sort: Midoriya (no surprise there), Koji (also not surprising, for a kid who was closer to animals than he was to humans, regardless of their sex), and, surprisingly, Bakugo.

Why had she bothered to check?

Okay, so Toru had a scientific hypothesis that men were always ogling the hottest babe from a young age and-frick, okay, maybe she was just a masochist reminding herself what guys liked to _see_. Helped her stay focused on her goal to be a hero then getting hung up over boys, as well as gave her the means to warn her girlfriends. Seriously, if pornography use made girls feel so vulnerable and grossed out, why did boys do it? Idiots, all of them.

Either or, knowing that at least some of the boys her room was over didn't have an obsession to naked girls when she was naked in front of them on a daily basis helped her sleep better.

Though...it didn't help her keep her attention off Bakugo any less.

"Hey. Hey you. Oy! Ugh...DIABEETUS!"

Sato actually heard Bakugo that time.

"What is it?" Sato asked, all politeness.

Toru didn't even know herself, as she was too busy hunching over her desk to keep her giggles silent and still.

"Toru?" Mina was looking at her, head cocked.

She breathed through her nose quick. "Yeah?"

"You okay? You hunched over all a sudden."

"Oh, yeah. Just tired. You know, when you just flop your face onto your desk?"

Mina's smiled broadly. "You know it! I'm pretty flipping tired myself today. Midnight's exams are insanity to study for."

Toru smiled to herself. Exams. Right. That's why she was tired.

She snuck her 'diary' out the moment Mina's attention was elsewhere.

_Diabeetus, Sato._

She made plans to tape in the 'Diabeetus' meme when she got back to her dorm and slipped her diary back in.

Their teacher, Midnight, walked in then, all curves and dark hair.

"I hope you brats are ready, because this exam," she snapped her whip unnecessarily. "Is gonna be more than you can handle."

Toru wondered a second too long on whether a whip would do her any good with her hero repertoire before filling in her name on the exam.

_Probably not,_ she decided.


	4. Hero of Secrets

4

Toru knew her father was cheating on her mom before she did. Toru hadn't said anything.

But her mom found out anyways.

Still, when Toru found out something she wasn't supposed to, which was always, she made sure to not say anything, unless she was positive it had to be said.

Like when she caught her best friend in middle school about to attempt suicide.

Or when she found her high school math teacher skipping lunches and throwing up after school.

Like when she caught Tokoyami cutting himself.

Or Bokugo picking a fight with Midoriya when the later obviously didn't want to.

When Minata got his hands on a video of all the girls in the locker room (she didn't know how she felt about him squealing on how erotic her empty panties floating in midair were).

And when Ojiro got so sick he fainted in his bathroom door and didn't get back up.

These were the things she wanted to be a hero for. To bring out the secrets that would save lives, and to protect those which were nobody's business. Including hers.

This was why she crawled out to everyone's windows before going to bed each night. This was why she woke up early to check on them. This was also why she followed through whenever she thought something fishy.

She caught up on sleep in Cementoss's classes. Not like he knew. It was one of her signature moves: Inviso-Snooze

Modern literature...pfft.


	5. Valentine's

5

The love happenings between Midoriya and Ochaco frustrated and depressed her.

Because it was obvious that they liked each other, but while Ochaco was aware of it and actively in love with the idea, Midoriya's head didn't have room for things like girls and romance. He was all hero. While not all bad, it did a sad story make, leaving Ochako pining and Toru bored.

But, since it wasn't her secret to tell, all she could do was watch. Or avoid watching in order to avoid the temptation to start screaming.

So, when she heard her own thoughts being shouted out by Bakugo, her heart leaped, even if he was clueless of the pain that came with keeping so many secrets.

"Damn it, Pink Cheeks, just make a fucking move! It isn't like stupid Deku's gonna reject you!"

They had been in the middle of P.E. and Toru had been purposely trying to ignore the conversation going on between Deku and Ochaco in front of her. She paid plenty of attention to their now red ears, however, and couldn't help but add in her own whoop of agreement.

Mina's arm came crushing around her neck.

"Stop it!" she hissed under her breath.

"What? He said it."

"Yeah, but we'll ruin any progress we made by embarrassing them! You know how Midoriya is."

Toru snorted. "What progress?"

Mina didn't say anything to that.

But just in case Mina was right about Toru just ruining the likelihood of their relationship taking off, she was forefront of the girls who encouraged (maybe a tad bit threatened) Ochaco to make chocolates for Midoriya for Valentines day. The rest of them even made a big show of making chocolates themselves as a sort of comforting/peer pressure deal, even if Mina was the only one who had a set in stone boy to give chocolates too. Though Toru had her suspicions about Momo and Jiro. Momo had always been hyper aware of Todoroki and Jiro always got a bit too smiley when Kaminari (Pikachu, hee hee) was involved.

Hey, just because Toru kept an eye out for them didn't mean she went poking around in people's journals and stuff. She had some decency, thank you very much.

When Valentines day came, however, Ochaco froze up and no amount of subtle poking in the back would get her moving towards Midoriya's seat. Soon, her chance was over, and the yellow cocoon which was Aiyazawa had risen up from his morning coma.

"I hate Valentines," he growled, his dead-eye duck stare even worse than usual.

Toru gave a low whistle. _Someone _had had a bad experience.

The next chance they had was in between classes, but any chance Ochaco had to squeeze in a word to Midoriya, let alone chocolates, was taken up by classmates-particularly male classmates, as the girls wouldn't have been so oblivious- wanting to squeeze in a chat. Toru found a new hatred for the male species. Clueless idiots, all of them!

By lunch, Ochaco was the only one who had yet to deliver her chocolates. And since they were the only ones that really mattered to anyone, Kirishima's giddy grin, Todoroki's stone-faced munching, and Kaminari's on and off again blush, while amusing, meant nothing.

Toru wanted to scream. She approached Ochaco with a whole passive-aggressive lecture that was probably not the best thing to tell her best friend-

Bakugo beat her to it.

He closed in on Ms. Zero Gravity with his head hung down to his shoulders like an ogre, hands in his pockets, and a glare turned up to kill. A braver soul would have peed, but Ochaco had enough immunity to try and run instead.

He cut her off with a fist slammed against the wall in front of her.

"Give me," he growled.

She blinked. "Huh?"

"What else? Give me the damn chocolate!"

Her knees pinched in, even as her lips curled back in anger. "They're not for you."

"No shit! Pass 'em over or I _blow up your face!_"

And sense a savage, snarling Bakugo in your face was frightening even to the best of them, Ochaco's chocolates flew from her book bag and into Bakugo's waiting fist.

With that, Bakugo spun on his heel and marched across the room to Midoriya's table. Poor kid actually looked like he _would _pee when he looked up to see Bakugo looming behind him.

"Ka-Kaachan?"

Bakugo dropped the pink little heart covered bag before him.

"From Ochaco."

And with that, Bakugo stomped away.

Toru wanted to kiss him. Instead, she settled for sneaking her own chocolates into his desk and watching his eyes widen on finding them before stuffing them away and looking around wildly as though he had just found illegal drugs rather than chocolates.

Gal, he killed her. Her stomach hadn't hurt this much from laughing in years.

That night, as she sat in her ritual brushing of her curly hair, she wondered how Bakugo handled his bag of illicit chocolates in the privacy of his room. It gave her stomach squiggles like Christmas Eve had done to her as a kid. No sooner had she set the last curl to satin smoothness then she decided and shimmied out of her paisley pink pajamas. She kept her hair loose as she always did when the night was cold and climbed out onto that thin, railed window ledge with practiced ease. Her hip-length hair did the job of keeping at least half her body warm. Her hands found well-remembered handholds and she made sure to give Mina's room a wide breadth, especially since her light was still on.

A careful slide down the water drain to the second floor. Three windows in, praying to whatever god would help out a sneak like her that the curtains would be open-and thank you god, they were.

And there was Bakugo, sitting in the dark against his bed, the bag of chocolates open besides him. He had his knees pulled up, his wrists resting on them, and his sharp-angled eyes glared to the TV.

Toru hunkered down, twining one hand about the side corner of the tiny railing and resting her other about her ankles. This way, her hair swamped her body like a blanket and her weight leaning her forward kept her steady.

As it always did, the simple boyishness of Bakugo's room charmed Toru, along with the knowledge that she was the only one who knew what his room looked like. It was a lot like a watered down version of Midoriya's room, with All Might posters and a few All Might figurines. Other than that, though, the colorings were dark, a set of bongos sat in the corner, a stereo she knew to blast rock and heavy metal on occasion in another, and stickers with various pointless sayings like "Death!" stuck on his furniture here and there. And, like many boys, his room was a mess, with dirty clothes, homework, and textbooks lying here and there.

As he reached into the bag for a chocolate, his eyes still to the screen, Toru smiled. Warmth flooded her, making her eyes burn slightly, but not enough to cry.

"I'm so glad you like them," she whispered, so quietly even she didn't hear.

She hunched in the chill with her warm cloak of hair and watched him for a few minutes, feeling peaceful rather than the creep she was being. Eventually, she took notice of the show he was watching, and it didn't take her long to recognize the movie as one she herself had seen before.

And it was a romance.

Gleeful, she waited for an upcoming, very moving scene where the lovers embraced and exchanged a heated, soulful kiss. Would he squirm? Blush? Oh heavens, she'd even love it if his face stayed in his perpetual glare mode too, because that would be just hilarious.

To her surprise, as the lovers came to their long awaited union, every line on his face softened and his gaze lost as much severity as those sharp eyes could. Finally, a soft, tiny little smile curved his lips.

Her heart skipped a beat. Tenderness, as she had never known, flooded through her, warming her far more than her thick hair ever could. She felt her own lips soften into a smile she couldn't have held in even if she tried.

Bakugo reached into the bag for another chocolate. For a second he rustled about, then turned momentarily to look in, probably to decide which of the last chocolates to eat-

And froze, his eyes to the window.

For a moment, Toru's stomach clenched in fear. But this had happened to her before. Someone would see something through her to make them stare, freaking her out, just to prove they couldn't see her anyways. Her invisibility was full proof. Everything she had ever tried in her life had proven that. There was no turning it off.

When his mouth dropped open and he just continued to stare, though, she had to glance behind her.

As she did so, red curls, half-lit by blue TV light, fell across her vision.

She looked down. Legs. Breasts. Arms.

She jerked back, screeching-

-and falling, masses of curls blocking out the lights as they never had before-

-"THWUMP" into someone's waiting arms.

Said person groaned, a very familiar groan. As he did so, her vision cleared as her hair and the rest of her once more went invisible.

"I really do hate Valentines," grumbled Mr. Aiyazawa, aka, Eraser Head.

Frozen like a dead cockroach, Toru's existence became the fact that she had fallen naked from a boy's window into her homeroom teacher's arms.

"I-I-I can explain-" she heard her mouth croaking, because her brain was too busy screaming and gnashing its teeth in hell.

"Yes, I'm aware you check up on your classmates," he drawled, acting completely unfazed by the fact his arms were still in contact with her bare skin. "How else would you have known about Tokoyami and Ojiro's cases last semester?" He kept his shadowed, blood-shot eyes straight forward, though he might as well be glaring right at her. "But you settled down a bit long for just a check up tonight, didn't you?"

Toru covered her face with fistfuls of her hair as she hadn't done since she was a child. Shame as she had never known burned her insides like lava.

After a few quiet moments, her teacher sighed and set her down on her feet. She didn't waste any time scuttling out of reach.

"Don't do it again," he said.

"Does...does that mean I'm not expelled?"

"As much as it makes me cringe, your invasion of privacy did save the lives of two of your classmates. That being said, don't make a habit of this, for obvious reasons." His eyes finally leveled on her in the most droll of stares. "It's creepy. And if I catch you doing it again, I'll do even worse than expell you."

She gulped, but had to ask. "Wh-what could be worse? Aiyazawa-sensei?"

The villainous smirk that rose just above his scarf made her shudder.

"I'll erase your quirk during class."

Meaning Bakugo would get a nice look at the creeper who had been crouching outside his window at night, staring in at him, naked.

"Never again!" she squeaked.

Aiyazawa nodded. "That's what I like to hear."


	6. Easy Addition

6

Next day, Toru walked into class in the kind of nervous sweats that make you want to wear menstrual pads in your armpits and between your legs and probably in your shoes for good measure, because surely everyone can see and gosh dang it can you FEEL IT. Despite Aiyazawa feeling he could use the threat of revealing her in class, she still feared that Bakugo knew anyways. Her boy, after all, was deceptively smart.

Even if he wasn't, it didn't take a genius to add one naked girl, a look out window, a visible quirk-canceling teacher, and no naked girl. What ho? You have an invisible quirk girl in your class!

So she could only hope Bakugo hadn't seen Aiyazawa. Or that, maybe, through some miracle of god, he'd had a moment of stupidity or memory loss.

Sweating all the way, she did what she did best and covertly kept an eye on Bakugo the moment he strutted into class like the bad boy he was and flopped down into his seat.

"Toru? Hellooooo."

Mina's pink hand waved feet from her face. A precaution to not hit her head.

Toru shook herself and yielded her attention. "Yeah?"

"Now I have your attention. What's got you this morning?" a cheshire grin stretched her face. "You watch'n someone?"

Toru snorted, even as her glands let loose another bucket of sweat. "Sure. Yeah."

"Don't give me that. Invisible or not, you can still have a crush on someone."

"Why is your first assumption that I'm staring at some guy? For all you know, I had a crappy night sleep because _someone_…" Toru stopped herself sharp.

Mina blinked her black eyes. "Someone what?"

"Forget it. If you didn't hear it, I'm not going to squeal. You know how I am with secrets." And she had almost broken her creed to protect those secrets by teasing her friend about sleeping with a boy just because Toru was anxious out of her mind . Had she heard them do the diddy? None of her business and it would only humiliate Mina. Toru had to get herself under control, and quick.

Mina pouted. "So it's not a boy? Come on, why nooooot?"

"I'm not going to repeat myself," Toru said tiredly, leaning her chin on her hand and glancing back to her query.

To find him glancing back.

She knew it was only by virtue of her invisibility that he didn't look away instantly, even if he did look away pretty casually to somewhere near her and then about the room, as though just looking around.

And that could have been the case still. But it still gave her goosebumps.

"Are you okay?" asked Mina. "You seem kind of down."

"Just tired."

"I've got some energy drink left if you want some."

Toru snickered at that, though she didn't feel it. "You're so chill at swapping spit. What if I get your alien germs?"

Mina chuckled and shoved her playfully. "And you'll be thankful for those germs, ya'll. Drink up some caffeine. Should perk you up."

Toru wanted to refuse. She was wound up enough without the help of stimulants. But, since she had an alibi of exhaustion to upheld...that wasn't really a lie, as she had hardly slept at all last night, she took a chug. It tasted like smarties that had been peed on.

"You actually like this?"

Mina was cut off from answering by a yellow, polyester cocoon rising up from the dead behind the teacher's podium.

"Quiet," it moaned. "Teenagers aren't allowed to be morning birds. It's unnatural. Let's get this over with."

The day went by as many school days, and the regularity of it helped stem the flow of nasty to her pits. The dampness of her shirt and underwear still made her shudder when she peeled them off to get dressed for P.E. A part of her wondered if she should just wear her P.E. uniform for the rest of the day. It was more comfortable anyway.

Nearby, Ochaco gabbled about her night on cloud nine with Midoriya.

"He was so shy and sweet! But, in the end, he knew me, and I knew him, so we just fell into the talk we usually did and he just took courage from that and, right in the middle of a sentence, he just broke out that he thought I was the nicest, cutest girl he's ever met-"

"Probably seen too," muttered Toru to herself, thinking about his All Might, girl-free bedroom.

Thankfully, the rest of the cooing girls covered that up.

Mina, however, tugged her to the back as they headed outside.

"Okay, you're acting weird. What's going on?"

Toru frowned. "Huh?"

"I heard you muttering, and usually you'd be the first one to give your piece about Ochaco getting together with Midoriya. You've been hanging on it happening forever, you even tried starting a betting pool. Then it happens and…" Mina stops, eyes widening. "Oh no. You like Midoriya too, don't you?"

"NO!" Toru shrieked.

The whole line of girls, as well as some of the boys who they had just met up with in the hallway, looked over in surprise, though they got over it once they realized there wasn't any fire or, rather, heroing to do. Most of the girls, however, turned about with looks of concerned.

"What's going on?" asked Momo.

"You okay, Toru?" asked Ochaco.

Instinctively, Toru's hands went to grab her hair to hide behind, but her fingers only got a few wayward strands. When she wasn't naked and out in the cold, she had her curls tied up fast to keep them from becoming a tangled nightmare.

Instead, she ran her sweaty fingers down her cheeks.

"I'm find, Mina just totally got the wrong idea and...just look away! You're making me blush! Stop!"

They chuckled and smiled and looked away.

Mina, however, was still frowning.

"Toru...come on, I'm just worried. It's what friends do, you know. Asking me not to is asking me not to care. If it has to do with your secrets, fine, but can you at least give me something to work with or let me hug you to death? Does Ochaco have to do with this? And it really isn't Midoriya?"

By now, they had already crossed the courtyard to the large gymnasium where Cementos had carved out some arenas for them. Looks like they'd be having matches of sorts.

Toru bit her lip and clenched her hands.

The truth was...she didn't want Mina to know not because she didn't trust her. But rather because she didn't want to be encouraged or given hope for something she would never have the courage to pursue.

Boys, after all, weren't trustworthy.

But even as she thought that, her eyes caught on to the back of Bakugo's head, remembering the soft smile he had given the romantic scene.

"Maybe I do...like someone," she mumbled.

Mina clutched her arms to her chest in a way that usually accompanied a piercing squeal, but, to her credit, Mina had enough of a feel for the situation to guess that if she made too much of a deal of it, she may scare Toru back into silence.

"That isn't a bad thing," Mina said back, just as quietly.

In front of them, Aiyazawa was already drawing their names out of a jar. As the class paired up, Cementos directed them to a ring. None of them had to be told the rules.

"Nothing's going to happen" Toru snapped.

"I didn't say anything," said Mina.

"Just don't go telling me to go for it and...and all that stuff…I'm still invisible."

Something sad glimmered in Mina's off-colored eyes. "Toru…"

Aiyazawa called out Bakugo's name. Toru automatically turned to look, just because it was him, and almost missed her own name being called.

A chill ran up her spine. She was fighting Bakugo.

"God hates me," she squeaked.

Mina's frown cut in deep. "Huh? It's just Bakugo. Just do your usual…" her eyes went wide in sudden understanding. "No way."

But before Mina could say another word, Toru was breaking through what was left of their crowd, jogging up to Cementos's other side.

"Ring eight," he said, pointing with a thick, square gray arm.

Toru didn't want to look at Bakugo as they went ahead. But having an invisible head made it too tempting not to.

He had his usual straight lipped scowl. 'Resting bitch face' as Mina had called it. Nothing stood out as obviously different from his usual intensity, except for the wide swinging of his arms and the slight hunch of his, uh, very nice shoulders-oh lanta, not even the P.E. uniform could hide it-not helping, brain! He looked uncomfortable, that's what mattered, and what other reason would he be uncomfortable than he _knew_?

And because she was being an idiot and staring at him, she wasn't watching and tripped over the edge of another arena like an idiot.

It would have been nice if he had caught her. But she had fallen so quick, it didn't even matter. And this was Bakugo we are talking about.

She saw a tiny bit of blood smear on the floor. Her palms and right forearm hurt like a mother.

Bakugo stopped and turned.

"You coming?" he gruffed.

"Y-yeah!" she squeaked, scrambling back to her feet and hiding her hands. "Sorry!"

But he was already walking.

It made her smile.

_So all business, _she thought, as she felt her chest grow warm. _Not one whit of false affection or worry about looking nice and chivalrous. I'm sure, if he ever did feel love towards someone…_

He would show it with every ounce of that same brashness, with not a care for the world, like a possessive dragon over it's trove. He'd mark them, he'd jealously guard them, he'd burn her with his passion-

Toru's feet hit her starting point in arena 8 and her thoughts crashed.

_No._ _Stop right now._ She had just thought of herself as the one he could…

"Ready?" he asked, crouching low with his hands spread out to the ground, like claws.

"When he gives the whistle." And she heard her voice as though it were far away, unlike her own.

Bakugo's sharp eyes narrowed. "I can still see you, stupid. You gonna fight me like that?"

Toru looked down and realized she was still in her P.E. uniform.

"Oh that…"

"I'm going to start you off with a count of five!" called Aiyazawa through a megaphone.

Toru jumped, madly tearing at her clothes. But damn, if her hands didn't sting!

"Four! Three!"

Bakugo looked away, his ears darkening.

"Such a crappy quirk…" she faintly heard.

"Two! One!"

Her panties and socks went flying as one and she was bare.

The whistle blew.

She leaped to the side just as Bakugo whirled back around, hand extended and a star bursting forth from his palm.


	7. Laugh, Cry, or Both

Author's Note: I don't usually use the f-word, so please excuse me. It was with the pure intention to stay true to Mr. ExplosionMurder

7

Holy crap, that boy was fast!

Toru missed his first assault by a hair, though the heat from the passing explosion seared across her back. She stayed on her stomach, toes and elbows curled beneath her, and used a special breathing technique she had picked up since coming to UA to keep herself calm, and most of all, quiet as the grave.

Bakugo didn't stop. He pivoted on his heel, blasting 360 degrees around him. It was only virtue of being pressed flat to the cement floor that she escaped at all.

Other students in surrounding arenas stopped in their mock battles to protest as excess explosion grazed them.

"Ain't my fault I wasn't given enough room!" Bakugo barked.

Toru took that chance to make her move, rising to her feet, though staying low in order to move quickly. Technically, her quirk wasn't just invisibility, but the ability to reflect light. She could flash him, blind him for a moment, though if she did that he could simply blow the entire arena again, this time with the floor included. She couldn't leave their square, though, as that would be instant elimination...at least, as long as she was honest. But the thought of being dishonest-

"Gonna hide?" cawed Bakugo. "Gonna ease out of the ring where I can't reach like some sneaky scum?"

Her ire prickled, but she stayed quiet. She knew what he was doing. Trying to rile her up to give herself away.

She moved like a ninja, carefully circling around to follow his shoulderblades. Under her opponent's nose was the best place to hide in close combat.

Bakugo let out another series of explosions, this time low to the ground. She timed it just right, then used legs powered through serious kick-boxing practice to leap as high as she could. He kept on exploding and therefore didn't hear the slap of her feet when she landed.

"What kind of hero work can a sneak even do?" sneered Bakugo. "What good are you in a real fight? How'd you even get in this class?"

Surprisingly, his words didn't faze her. They even made her smile. She listened to him far too much and knew his childishness for what it was. Kind of cute, actually, like an angry puppy trying to get her attention.

Then she was there, behind him, her eyes level to the square of his back. Right where she wanted him.

She focused her quirk, readying the flash.

"Oy, where did you-"

Her lightning flared. Bakugo cried out in pain. Several other students cursed. Toru, however, was immune to the light, saw through it, ducked round for the uppercut-

"FUCK YOU, GINGER TITS!"

Halfway to his chin something snapped. Instead of her fist, her whole body bounded up, clamping his belligerent head between her thighs and using her momentum and weight to bring his skull crashing down to the cement. Then she punched him in the face with all the strength she possessed.

Blood poured from his nose. His eyes didn't open.

A whistle blew and Toru scrambled off him, heart stuttering.

He didn't move.

_What...what had she just done?_

"Victory to Hagakure," said Aiyazawa, sounding awake for once. "In a surprising one minute and fifteen seconds. I don't think anyone has taken down Bakugo faster than that. I am impressed, especially since your quirk isn't combat-oriented."

"Th-thanks?" Her face and neck burned something awful. There was a reason she had never used that move before.

The last thing she had wanted was to clamp her bare thighs and crotch near or, heaven forbid, on a classmate's face.

And she had just done that to Bakugo, who was still out cold on the floor.

"Am...am I done for today?" she croaked. "For this class."

Aiyazawa scratched his stubble. "Are you hurt?" Though he leaned in to check over Bakugo.

"No…" then she turned and winced. "Wait, I think he burnt up my back a little." Like a bad sunburn. Thank god to adrenaline for covering up that mess in the heat of battle. "And my hands are a little scraped up…"

He nodded. "Help me get the brat and you to Recovery Girl and we'll call it good."

Toru's knees went weak. Oh gawl, what if he woke up on the way? Oh god...oh god, what if he had _smelled_ her crotch? And she had been sweating all morning, oh crud, oh frick...

Feeling faint, she tottered her way back to her clothes. Then, once dressed, she did her best to shut down her brain while reaching down to haul up a very nice, muscled arm of the unconscious Bakugo.

No sooner had she wrapped her punching hand under his arm then a bolt of pain shot up her arm. She cried out, mostly in surprise. Aiyazawa dropped the arm he had been reaching for too.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I...I think I might have busted my hand in that last punch…"

Aiyazawa gave one of his trademark sighs. "Can't say I've never done that. Try not to move it."

Thus, thankfully, when Bakugo groaned back to consciousness down a hallway, halfway to the nurse's office, it was Sato his right side hung off, not hers.

"Wha...wha vhe hell…" his voice came out blubbery, his swollen nose impeding his speech.

"Be a good boy and try walking a bit yourself," said Aiyazawa.

"Get ov me," Bakugo shoved off from both of them, wavering. "I'm gonna 'ill her. Fuck that bitch…"

"Um, Bakugo," Sato said. "You know a teacher's right there, right?"

"Shu' up, Diabe'us!"

Toru stayed very, very quiet.

Despite his wounded pride, Bakugo allowed himself to be herded to the nurse's office. However, when he turned around to collapse on the bed indicated by Recovery Girl, his eyes fell on her, and hellfire lit them up. His snarl came at her sharp as knives.

"What ve hell you doi'n, stalker!"

Okay, that...that kind of hurt. Just a little.

"What do you think?" said Aiyazawa in a bored tone, shoving Bakugo's head down by his face, eliciting a yelp of pain as he pressed in on the boy's broken nose. "Chiyo, she hurt her hand while punching and got her back burnt."

Bakugo did many much growls, per the usual. So, since Toru was the one sitting sweet and quiet and not like a poorly trained dog, Recovery Girl saw to her hand and back first. Yes, she had snapped a few bones ("My goodness, girl! Hold back a little before punching walls, yes?"). But the point was she managed to get her scraped, broken hands and back healed and out before Bakugo was allowed to sit up and keep barking.

Alone in the locker room, she closed the pink curtains tight about her and huddled on the floor beneath the spray of hot water. She could feel her eyes burn and her nose begin to run, yet she couldn't stop smiling.


	8. He Knows So What?

8

"Did you hear what Bakugo called Hagakure?"

The last person she wanted to hear those words from squalled it from beneath his fugly, purple balled hair.

"He calls people a lot of things, dude," said Sero blandly, leaning a cheek on his palm.

"Let me guess, Invisible Girl?" drawled Kaminari, once more chewing gum and looking only half-awake from where his head rested on his arms.

Toru jumped to her feet. "Say those next words and I will END you, Mineta!"

Class 1-A had their share of shrieky students. Toru, not being one of them, got their attention.

"What filth did you get into this time?" asked Jiro.

"Toru? What's wrong?"

"Hey, Toru-"

"Oy-!"

Instead of withering before her, as Toru had intended, Mineta gave her a greasy, cocky smirk and leaned back in his chair.

"Sorry, girl, I was just wondering how Bakugo of all people knows the color of your nipples."

Dead silence.

All the blood drained from her face.

Her only redemption was that Bakugo had yet to arrive.

Mina launched up from her seat, pink hands splayed out, ready to fire.

"What gave you _any_ idea that talking about a girl's boobs in class was okay, pervert?!"

"And if I recall," Ochaco was on her feet too. "She said to _shut your mouth_!"

Sero and Kaminari had woken up completely.

"No way he called her by the color of her nipples," said Sero.

"What color?" Kaminari all but cried.

"MINETA-!"

"Ginger," he said. "You ever seen a redhead's tits, dude? Sublime."

And since Mineta's sense of self-preservation had been turned off that morning, the next second found his desk melting, hanging from his feet six feet in the air, and Ochaco closing in for a slap.

"OY!"

The roar of their usually soft-spoken teacher froze them to the spot. From the doorway where he had just entered, his eyes glowed red, lasered in on their corner of the classroom.

"Take one more step, Uraraka, and it's expulsion. Drop him. Ashido, belligerent destruction of school property is a type two offense. We'll talk about your punishment after class, but for now sit your ass down before it becomes expulsion as well."

They zipped back to their seats, hands on their knees, backs straight. All but Mineta, who, after plopping down none too gently, looked down at the remains of his desk bubbling away into vaporizing goo.

"Uh...sir?"

Though his eyes no longer blazed scarlet, the look Aiyazawa gave Mineta was droll.

"Knowing the kind of uncensored things that come out of your mouth, I think waiting until tomorrow for a new desk is your just desserts. Learn from your bad choices, yeah?"

Only then did Bakugo walk in, flanked by Kirishima and followed by Tsuyu. All three of them picked up on the tense atmosphere and looked around curiously. But even if it was the tension before a nuclear attack, it wouldn't stop Bakugo from all but falling into his chair and leaning back like he owned the place. For all Toru knew, he intended to do so in his future.

Thankfully, All Might wasn't too far behind them, and once he arrived he waved at Aiyazawa and the later took up a relaxed post in the corner. Ever since All Might's retirement and permanent sickly appearance, the other teachers had taken to sitting in on his classes every week or so for their own purposes that could range from checking in on his health to making sure he had the help he needed. It was any of their guesses.

Toru had never been more illogically uncomfortable in her life. Why would she, or anyone, care about what came out of Mineta's mouth? And who would ever believe that anyone, let alone Bakugo, had seen her without her invisibility? They knew as well as her that she had yet to figure out a way to turn off her quirk, and nobody in their right mind would ever assume that Bakugo and her were intimate. Kirishima, Bakugo's unspoken best friend, had to fight tooth and nail for weeks to make it past Bakugo's lone wolf act. Now it was just wolf, gnashing fangs included.

And yet she couldn't focus on a word All Might sensei said until she had undone the hidden pins holding up her hair and wrapped the curls about her face.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bakugo look away from her.

Then she decided she really, yeah, for real, didn't care and focused on the teacher. After all, the worst had happened and she had survived. Bakugo saw her. Gave her a nickname. And we all moved on with life.

Yep. Nothing new.

It was actually kind of a relief.

The day went by. They would be heading over to the disaster arena on Monday. Mina proposed her usual TGIF (Thank Goodness It's Friday) get together in her room with popcorn and B-rated movies. Toru echoed the call of freedom and made sure to pack a plastic bag of bundled socks to throw at the screen when the movie was particularly bad with the rest of them. Homework? A hell befitting to be put off until Saturday.

Toru had just settled in onto Mina's pink a green poka dot comforter with Ochaco and Momo when Mina closed the door and turned to look right at Toru. The grin she sported said Toru had been a fool to fall into a false sense of security.

"So," Mina all but purred. "How does our resident time-bomb know you're a ginger?"

Ochaco echoed Mina's cheshire grin. Momo did her best not to, but her eyes sparkled.

Toru knew from watching people so much that the harder she fought to not tell them, the bigger of a deal they'd think it was (and probably accurately so, but they didn't need to know).

"Aiyazawa-sensei turned off my quirk and he happened to see me," said Toru.

"You're trying really hard to sound casual, aren't you?" said Momo before popping a popped kernel in her mouth. "Must have really been something."

Ochaco's grin grew wider. "Didn't you admit to me that you liked him?"

All attempts at a cool interrogation flew out the window. They lost it.

"You like someone? I knew it-"

"After that whole spiel about not liking boys-"

"King Explosion Murder? _Seriously_?"

"And he of all people saw you _naked!"_

"_I said no such thing_!" Toru shrieked.

But Mina just slapped her hands to her face with a gasp. "You gave him those chocolates, didn't you? You didn't eat them like you said?"

Ochaco and Momo gave echoing gasps.

"You didn't-"

"Liar!"

"Alas, it has happened. We have a lying hero in our midst," said Mina in mock solemnity, broken by another squeal. "What were you doing when he saw you? And he's the only one who's ever seen you, oh my goooosh!"

"You weren't...peeking on him, were you?" asked Momo, all caution and still the most calm of the lot of them.

Ochaco squawked with delight. "Oh my gawd! Say you were!"

"No, no, keep on jabbering up crap, it saves me from having to answer," said Toru, having slunk off the bed and onto the floor.

None of her friends needed to see her face.

"Oh, Toru, we didn't mean-it's nothing to be sad about," said Ochaco. "I'm not going to push it, I promise, it's just, you know, we're your friends. Friends talk about crushes and stuff."

"I don't see why," Toru had given up all attempts on saving face or feeling. "Most crushes don't work out and most guys are scum."

Momo crossed her arms beneath her unfairly well formed breasts. "That's a little unfair."

"Sexist much?" said Mina.

Ochaco, however, said nothing. Only giving Toru a pitying, sympathetic look. With a sigh, she crawled across Mina's shaggy green rug to sit next to her.

"I know it doesn't mean much, but my dad is great." She gave Toru her best smile. "He treats my mom like a princess. They're so gross together, you'd love it."

"You saying I like gross stuff?" said Toru flatly.

All their faces fell. Toru immediately regretted saying that.

"I take it back!" she cried. "I didn't mean it like-it just slipped out! I know you don't think that, really! Aw shucks."

"No, no, it makes sense!" Mina protested, coming down to Toru's other side. "You've been accused of that before, right? It's cool, just...look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you, I just thought...oh, screw this. Let's just forget we ever mentioned boys and get to the movie. If we keep going on we're going to have to hear Ochaco's rendition of her beloved Midoriya, kissing sounds included."

Ochaco wrinkled her nose in disgust, but grinned. "You're just jealous."

"Maybe over your luck, but not your boy," said Momo with a snicker as Mina flicked on the TV.

"What are you talking about? Haven't you seen the kid's abs?" said Toru, desperate to make up for being a wet blanket-afterall, there was nothing less funny than an emo friend.

"Toru!" But even as Ochaco scolded her, her face flared pink.

Eventually, the movie got started on a slow, quiet space station. It soon became apparent that the scrawny, curly haired guy was alone with only robots and trees for comfort.

'_Earth has destroyed their forests, having no need for the plants. These are Earth's last trees, sent to space for preservation…'_

"Because space is the perfect place for trees."

"Oh gall."

"Boo!"

"BOO!"

Socks went flying.

Somehow, in the comforting drone of bad television, Toru's guilt and discomfort was allowed to percolate and give fruit. She realized she had overreacted-again-and totally not been herself. It was just stupid boys. She should have just gone with it, let them giggle, and moved on. Instead, she had to make them all feel uncomfortable just because….

"I really, really like him," she all but whispered.

At first, she thought none of them had heard, and didn't know whether she was okay with that. But, then, Mina's hand came to her shoulder. She felt Ochaco gently set her chin on top of her head from behind her on the bed.

"Your hair is so soft," she said. "Just by its feel I know it's gorgeous. Bakugo's a lucky guy. I wish I could see it."

Mina's hand on her shoulder felt over to twist her fingers in a curl as well. "I've always thought so too. All the times you let me help you brush it. It's so long."

"I bet you look like a princess," said Momo, who had slid over to her otherside as well.

"A mermaid princess," added Mina with a happy smile.

Toru pulled her legs to her chest, her lips turning up and eyes burning every so slightly.

"You think so?"

"I bet you are so beautiful," said Ochaco softly from where she nuzzled her head. "If Bakugo were gay, you blew him straight."

They all had a chuckle at that.

"No, really," said Ochaco, a little more loudly. "Out of all the nicknames he could have called you, he referred to your hair and your boobs. He doesn't do that with any of the other girls in class. It's based off their quirks and stuff."

"Oh my gosh, you're right," said Momo, eyes wide. "Toru...you've made King Explosion Murder into a man."

They laughed so hard and long, by the time they looked back to the movie all the trees had been blown up in space and the curly-tree-hugger-astronaut was nowhere to be seen.


	9. Yuki Onna

9

So, the worst had happened. He'd seen her spying on him naked outside his window and more or less shouted it to the rooftops by calling her 'ginger tits' at the top of his lungs. He thought her a creepy pervy stalker and she still thought he was the cat's meow. But, then, she had never considered having a 'chance' with him, though her little crushing girly heart didn't give a rat's ass what logic thought, so yeah, it was depressing.

Point was, life was supposed to continue on. They'd get wrapped up in hero studies again, especially the passionately dedicated Bakugo, and her trespass would be more or less forgotten.

But, Bakugo ended up, through some sadistic twist of fate, in her group during natural disaster rescue practice. They ended up in the snow and ice section specifically because the cold was both of their weaknesses. Their other two members included Koda and Tsuyu, both of which were nearly helpless in the cold. The whole exercise was about coming up with a strategy for one's weakness.

Tsuyu was already slipping into hibernation when the jeep dropped them off.

Since Toru was the one holding her up and slapping her in an attempt to keep her conscious, she gave the first cuss.

"How do they even have a frozen section?" She looked around at the walls enclosing their area, along with the mini-Mount Everest in the center. Ceiling fans mimicked blizzard-like winds next to snow-making machines. "Just how much did this all cost to make? Come ON, Tsu!"

"Just push the rescue button for her, she's a goner," said Bakugo, looking right cozy in his winter hero costume.

Toru shuddered. She hadn't had a winter costume, so only her boots protected her from the snow. The air gnawed on the rest of her. "I have to at least give her a chance. Effort counts."

Bakugo rolled his eyes and his shoulders. "Whatever. You and Dolittle get going, I can handle this by myself." Bakugo took the first step off the road and into the snowdrifts. His foot sunk to his knee.

Koda, teeth chattering, just looked about. "I g-guess m-m-my quirk was never much use i-i-n this building…"

"Maybe they put, like, snow foxes in here for you, they'd have to give you that much for this to be fair-"

"Or the Yeti," said Bakugo, who hadn't gotten too far ahead. "Buzz off already, I don't need to rescue you extras on top of the victims."

Toru just groaned. Her jaw ached from the effort to hold still.

"Oh, come on, Tsu!" And she was even wearing more layers than her. Not hard to do when you wore nothing.

"It-t-t-t's okay, I can at l-l-least go with him," said Koda in his ever soft voice.

Toru dropped her head back. "This is so unfair…" then a thought occurred to her. When light bounced off a mirror, it could warm up stuff. That's basically how solar ovens worked. Lightbulbs, the sun-though those things probably had something more than light. But light was energy, wasn't it? Maybe if she reflected as much light as possible into a point, kind of like her flash, but focus it more inward instead of just outside her body...

Koda waded after Bakugo through the snow and Toru pressed her froggy friend's rescue button. Then, she hunkered down for warmth and did her best to focus.

Her first attempts just made more flashes. It brought out the details of the megalithic walls of the enclosure quite well. Them were some big bolts. Yep.

If her teeth chattered any harder, she was going to lose brain cells as her brain got smashed against her skull in jackhammer fashion.

More flashes. At this rate, she'd just have to let herself be picked up with Tsu.

And yet...that didn't bother her as much as knowing Bakugo was leaving her behind.

At the thought of him, shoving through the snow, she could see in her mind's eye the muscles along his clenched jaw perfectly.

An ache, like a horrid case of heart-burn, stabbed her chest. She curled around it, clutching her hands there as she focused, _focused,_ digging around the light at the same time she shoved that image of his jutted jaw into that ache.

Warmth. No, white-hot heat, like fire, but the size of a candle, came into being.

At first, she thought some of that heart-burn ache had just leaked outside of her body. But looking down she saw just light, a ball of it, clutched in her gloves. Even as she looked, it dimmed, along with its warmth.

And with it, she saw Bakugo getting further. The ache increased, and frantic, she once more used that pain to focus, imagining she was shoving in a knife with the light-

And the ball of warmth returned. She clutched it close to her, letting its warmth cover her front. Once she was sure she had it stable, she reached back with her other hand and undid her thick mane of curls to cover her back. It would be a nightmare to work through tonight, but at least she would be warm.

Squaring her shoulders, she looked up from the road and easily spotted the black figure of Bakugo, some ways away, but not too far. She moved to follow when a flash of something caught her eye. She shifted her light and the flash occurred again to the left side of the man-made mini-mountain.

_Could it be? _A reflection for a call to aid?

Steeling herself for the cold, she thought of another image of Bakugo, this one with him cackling like some wacko maniac at a particularly well-done explosion, and dug that into the ache in her chest. Her focus increased, so did the heat, and she took her first knee-deep plunge into the snow.

It hurt. Despite holding heat to her front, it could only go so far past the snow. Her boots had to do the rest. But now that she was facing where she had seen the reflection, she could see it more now, flashing S.O.S. in turn. A grin split her face as she thought of the look on Bakugo's face when she once more beat him in an exercise and found it good fodder to feed the miniature sun in her hands.

Each step hurt more and more. Pain crawled up to her thighs. She kept her hair close to her back by pinching it between her sides and her underarms. But the pain just helped her focus on the light in her hands even more, and it grew. Soon the pain fell away from her bare skin and her feet went numb, and by then, she could see the little old man wrapped in orange furs, flailing his short little arms above his head with the little square mirror.

Red curls escaped her clenched arms, wiping her face.

She saw him squint through the gale. Then his eyes went wide. The mirror dropped from his hands.

"I-I-I...I'm not ready…" he croaked.

She had to let go of what little of her hair she had managed to keep caught against her side to reach the heat out to him. The palms of her gloves had gone from blue to brown and her hands burned, but the rest of her was simply cool.

The red curls came like banners, ribbons left to the wind.

"This will keep you warm," she said. Wow, even her lips were numb.

But the old man, one of the members of the professional troupe of distressed victims used to train heroes, drew back, his face gone as pale. He put up his hands.

"No! I'm not ready to die! This-this was supposed to be an exercise!"

Her little light faltered-but only for a second. "Sir, I'm one of the students. I'm here to help!"

"STAY BACK!" he hardly heard her, turning to scramble out of the little wooden seat made into the snow.

"Wait!" Her grade-her credit-Bakugo's adorable defeated face-

"What the hell, Ginger Tits!"

Sliding onto the scene, Bakugo cut off the old man's escape and flung him over his shoulder in one smooth move, even with his eyes on her.

And they were wide. Wide as the old man's, and fearful, even as his bared ferocious teeth said only rage.

"_Are you insane?!_"

And as he said that, she saw the red hair, circling about her like the hem of a clock, and her own white skin. She hadn't a freckle to her name. Not a freckle to tell her she was seeing flesh instead of straight through to snow.

White and red, holding a dying sun in her hands.

But, somehow, she couldn't figure out what she thought of that. She just continued holding it out to the old man, confused.

"But it will keep you warm," she said, so sad. All this way for nothing. All this way...all that pain…

Why did she even bother? Not even Bakugo looked like he was going to take her miraculous discovery, even though he was cold too. He didn't like the cold.

He didn't like her. No man could ever like her. No one.

The light was dying.

"Don't you dare-get up! Damn it, don't go invisible now-FUCK!"

No. She hadn't seen herself. The red had been blood. Her skin had just been snow. She hadn't made it.

"Yuki-onna-_Yuki-onna_-"

"Shut up, old man, it's the frigging invisible girl whose suppose to-fuck it, all this snow. OY! I said GET UP, Titties!"

"You mean she's-but she's _naked!"_

"Whoopty, you know your shapes, Alzheimer's is afar yet-TORU!"

She...she was an idiot.


	10. Hypothermia

**Author's Note: Writing the next chapter as we speak...via telepathy. Because, obviously, that's what writing is.**

**Also, wouldn't every pairing with Bakugo be a crack pairing?**

10

A hot, sharp pain broke through her daze. Someone was swearing at her. She tried to see who, but her eyes didn't want to open. They were stuck.

The sharp pain came again, slashing across her arm she had forgotten had existed.

Her eyes popped open like a switch. Bakugo glared down, all snarl and snow-crusted hair.

"There you are," he spat, and she felt his hot hands feeling her out in the snow, then wrapping under her. "Invisibility is the crappiest damn quirk."

"How could you…" croaked an old man...old man? "She's bleeding-"

"Shut up, it's just her hair."

He had pulled her to his chest and she could somehow feel his heat through the thick fabric. Her eyes fluttered. She could smell something like carmel, maybe a little burnt. She let herself fall back down in the darkness, so tired.

Only to wake up, surrounded by fire.

She gasped.

"Good, she's responding," said a voice. "Keep the hot bottles coming."

Even as the heat burned, her skin somehow got use to it, like taking a dip in a hot bath. Her teeth started to chatter madly, hurting her jaw and making her whole head rattle. Her eyes were sticky again.

"What the hell's that sound?"

Bakugo. What's he doing here? Where was she?

"It's her teeth chattering. That's a good sign. You said you saw her, can you tell us how she did that? We need to get an IV into her."

"I, I'm sorry," said a familiar older voice. "When she dropped the light she vanished into the snow. This young man had to feel around for her."

The heat had finally reached optimal level. Despite the chill within her it could not reach, it was just enough for her to slip back to sleep again.


	11. Absent Friends and Obligated

**If you're discouraged by the state of the world right now, remember that it is through natural disasters, pandemics, and other wide-spread hardships that reminds people of the goodness in themselves and their love for one another.**

11

Toru woke up in the nurse's office (though, to be fair, it was more of a school hospital). Recovery girl gave her a last check up, told her to read up on warning symptoms of hypothermia before diving naked into the snow, and sent her back to her dorm. Since keeping itself warm had drained her body of energy, there wasn't too much Recovery Girl could do for her other than dredge up whatever energy could be spared to warm her up.

Thus, Toru was dragging on her way to the dorms. She walked underneath the soft line of the sky where the royal blue of night and the red-gold of the sunset met. She kept her eye on it to stop herself from looking down, sure that if she did she'd follow her eyes to the ground.

"Just keep walking," she muttered to herself.

Her legs burned something awful. And despite not having hypothermia anymore, she still felt pressed in by ice.

"Oy,"

She jerked to consciousness leaning against a lamppost, having no memory of falling asleep.

"Wha-wha?" It took her a full five seconds to actually register what her eyes were seeing.

Bakugo was clicking his fingers in front of her face.

"What happened to your gabble of friends?" he asked, his expression saying he didn't really care, he just had to do something out of obligation since she was in his way. "Aiyazawa got them to volunteer to walk you back and everything."

She just blinked at him. Then shrugged. "Maybe they got laid up." She laughed drunkenly of her own joke, thinking of Mina and Kirishima. Gal, she was terrible.

Hey...wait. "It's dark." Where'd the pretty sunset go?

"No shit," said Bakugo. "Come on. Move."

She pushed off the lamppost and started forward-to find the sidewalk rushing up to give her a kiss.

He caught her with an arm about the waist. She drifted back to when she tripped during gym, when they had been walking to their match. If he had caught her then... By the time that train of memory had fizzled out, she was being shaken out of sleep again by him.

"Don't you dare make me carry you, Titty. I'm shitload of tired too, you know."

"You really like my boobs, don't you?" she mumbled.

"What was that?"

"Boobs," she giggled, eyelids so very, very heavy and itchy. "My boobs."

"You're the freaky perv who squatted outside my window naked. UP."

She tried again, but this time she didn't even get to see the sidewalk. Everything just went black.

His hard shoulder digging into her gut panged through the darkness.

"Oof. Owie, stop it."

"Be grateful."

"You just wanna touch my butt."

"My hand ain't nowhere near it!"

"Hee...hee…"

She couldn't really tell if it was anyways. She fell down a bit more on his shoulder so it was more against her hips than her stomach and somehow that was enough for her brain to run away into subconsciousness.

Then her world got all topsy turvy and flipped because her feet were on the floor and her head right-side up, even though her legs still weren't working. Bakugo's heat next to her and under her arm told her how. He had an arm around her waist and one of hers around his neck.

"Wake the hell up already!"

"Huh?"

"Keys, woman, _key."_

She tried to think, remember, but it was like trying to push through tar. "Ugh, just blow it up."

"Check your pockets."

"Don't wanna."

He growled-oh, she loved it when he did that. She wanted him to do that while his face pressed against her neck. "You really are a sick perv, I am not checking your pockets!"

"Ha ha, do I even have any? Skirty skirts."

"Stop screwing with me! I'm one second to just dropping your ass."

She mumbled something else not even she caught and blinked heavily at a corner of carpet that wrapped around the doorframe. Bed would be nice. Pocket of her uniform jacket. That's right.

And then her key was in her hand. Shiny. Sleepy. Somehow, her brain made her think that having the key already meant she was in bed.

But then his rough fingers scraped her palm, leaving it somehow burning from the touch, and jammed the key into the doorknob. He half dragged her in, swore when he tripped on the edge of her shag rug, then moved his hand from her waist to fumble around for the lightswitch.

"Evil," she hissed when the light turned on.

"Fucking pink," he said. Which, yeah, her room was. He crossed the space between the door and her bed in two strides and all but flung her on it. "There you go, Titties. My charity ends here."

But he turned off the light and closed the door after him. She fell asleep then and there, her legs hanging off the side of the bed, still in her school uniform with her backpack on.

And she dreamed that he hung back against her door in the darkness, watching her for an immeasureable amount of time before coming forward to run those hard, hot palms against her back, her backpack mysteriously missing. He didn't say anything as he leaned down on her, brushing his nose and brow against her neck, then her scalp. There, he nuzzled through her mane of hair, which had lost all her carefully placed pins. His heat laid over her, heavy and reassuring and comforting as she had never known anything to feel. No hug had ever made her so content. She never wanted to move again, even with her legs still hanging at the wrong angle off her bed.

When she woke up, she thought him still there, only to find it to be her fluffy comforter, which she had squirmed under in her sleep to escape the pervasive chill.


	12. Just Compensation

**Author's note: I'm hungry, but I don't feel like eating. I'd like to enjoy having an excuse to hole up in my house and write, but the people I live with are all strung up and need me. *sigh***

12

"I did it to see if you liked my chocolates."

Bakugo jumped a foot in the air from where he had been lounging against his bed, listening to music, and swore. She withheld her laugh as he scrambled for the remote to turn off the surprisingly normal level classical concerto. Though, granted, it had some very angry piano playing. The pianist had to have been playing fourteen or more keys at once.

"How the hell-you freaking-"

"I'm not a perv. This is the grand second time I've ever even been in your room."

"There still was a freaking first!"

"Which I did on order of the principal," she said cooly, crossing her legs from where she sat on his desk, which so happened to be close to his window, which he had left open. There had been the slightest breeze, which had disguised her entry through his curtains. "And I checked everyone's rooms, not just yours."

His eyes narrowed on her, or what he could see of her, which wasn't much, so he was basically glaring somewhere over her left shoulder. She didn't care, really. She was busy checking out the black tank top and baggy gray sweatpants. He looked quite cuddly. To her, anyways. Anyone else would have thought her off her rocker, but then, she was, wasn't she?

"What the hell for?" he growled.

"Check to see if anyone was connected to the League of Villains in any way, directly or indirectly. Our summer training camp had been top secret, after all. Everyone had to be checked."

"And why the hell not you?"

She gave him a droll look she didn't care that he couldn't see. "Point is, I'm not a perv. I only wanted to see if you liked my chocolates. I also came with a tribute to appease your rage, Lord Explosion Murder."

"Tough luck," his palms crackled. "It's just increased. Like hell I'd believe a word out of a sneaky stalker like you."

Sighing loudly, she proceeded to unwrap a mass of her hair around the book she had carefully carried over.

As it appeared, he jumped again, this time to his knees, palms at the ready.

"Hold on to your panties, it's just a journal," she said, very, very amused.

"Whose?"

"Mine."

"Why the hell would I want that?"

"Because, either or, I invaded your privacy." She tossed the book on the floor before him, where it bounced and fell open. "The only fair recompense would be to allow you to do the same to me."

And with that, she slipped back out his window, smiling as he continued spewing insults at her long after she had left. It made her insides tickle thinking how he might go around his room like a blind guy feeling around and making little explosions to ensure she wasn't there before closing and locking his window. Why he had left it open in the first place was beyond her.

Sure enough, she heard little explosions through her floor for the next hour.

"So cute," she said through a smile.

And smile she could. Because although Bakugo was about to learn her secrets, he already thought the worst of her. His opinion of her could hardly get any less. And since they weren't other's secrets (she would never endanger anyone so much by putting their secrets on paper), her conscience was content as well.

She spent the rest of the day catching up on sleep and the homework she had missed sleeping through the previous day. She went down for dinner, where she stumbled upon her friends sitting about the table with stacks of waffles and was faced with the confrontation she had been dreading. By their expressions, they had been too.

It wasn't that she thought they had abandoned her at the Nurse's Office. Not after knowing all the rest of their secrets. She knew them more than they knew her.

So, she sighed.

"Alright, guys, what was your plan behind ditching me?"

All three of them, Momo, Ochaco, and Mina, flinched.

"How did you-"

"We were going to confess all, I swear!" cried Ochaco very dramatically.

Mina snorted. "Figures. Look, Toru-"

"We promise we waited until you were safe home, we swear! We only wanted you to be happy!" said Momo.

Ochaco squealed and wrapped her arms around Momo's face. Mina just rolled her eyes.

"You're better off not knowing, buddy," she said. "Just know we still love you to death and made you waffles and homemade strawberry syrup as proof."

But the reason Toru had been dreading this meeting bubbled up like acid from her gut. Yes, she wasn't afraid of them not liking her. She wasn't afraid that they had forgotten her or anything like that. Nor was she angry. No. She knew why.

And it hurt.

"I'm not stupid," she said, softly, controling the growing rock in her throat with years of practice. "You tried to make something happen between Bakugo and me...even though you knew this is why I never wanted you to know if I liked a guy. Even though I specifically asked you not to."

A harsh quiet dropped over them.

Momo was the first to break it, standing up. "Toru, we just wanted to help. You've totally given up on yourself ever being love, and we just wanted-"

"-to try and hook me up with the guy least likely of everyone in the world to give me that."

Mina, somehow managing to look guilty and scoff at the same time. "Dude, even Bakugo's going to fall-"

"-in love with a girl someday? You don't even know if he's straight."

"Will you let me finish a damn sentence?"

But the end of Toru's control was ending and she had already turned around.

"Toru…" said Ochaco weakly. "Please, we didn't mean any harm. We knew he wouldn't leave you out there. Toru?"

She felt hot walking back to her room, even as she shivered. A few fat tears squeezed out, but otherwise she kept a tight rein on it. After all, she knew how this would all turn out. She'd have some time, get over it, and they'd all make up and go back to how things usually went. They'd throw themselves back into their studies like they were supposed to. Boys would go back to the subplots where they belonged. Bakugo...Bakugo would probably have a few more chances to call her Ginger Tits or Titties, whatever variation he wanted, then he too would get back to his life. She didn't expect her diary back. She'd probably get a new notebook to keep her secret mean-funny stuff in to laugh at whenever she was feeling down…

Like now. She really wanted her book now.

She locked her door and her stomach growled.

"Oh mini-fridge, my bosom companion," she sighed, slinging open the little white door and grabbing a packet of cheese and ham. "It is but you and I now in the field of battle."

She sniffed. Dug out some crackers from somewhere. Turned on her computer and curled up on her pink chair to morosely munch on her little ham-cheese crack-sandwiches. Hee ha. Crack. Ugh.

Yeah. She'd get over this. They all would. And move on.

But, for right now, she didn't want to.


	13. The Pain of Visibility

**Author's Note: I figured out the other day that the popular old Celtic folk song, Scourbough Fair, is actually a song about how to farm. It includes how to find good land, what to do with the land, how to fertilize and till the land, what to plant, and then, in turn, how that land will become your true love as it supports you and your family.**

**In case any of you are thinking of escaping the city and going rogue. **

13

The circles under Aiyazawa's eyes were especially pronounced when he finally called her in to go over the results of her natural disaster rescue. Since a rescue could potentially take all day, each region of the building, and in turn each group, had one teacher to oversee the results. She had the luck of having him again, so at least her nakedness wasn't spreading around school too much.

After staring each other down for a few minutes, with her fidgeting, he sighed.

"If your streaking becomes habitual, I'm going to consider signing you up with Togata Mirio's tutor." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Naked teenagers aren't healthy for my eyesight, which needs all the help it can get. But, to my main critique, I'm basically going to tell you the same thing I told Midoriya." He leaned forward on his folded arms. "A hero who ends up needing rescuing themselves is useless."

She sighed too. "Yes. Recovery Girl let me know how stupid I was, you can stop there, I get it."

"However," the corner of his tired eyes crinkled. "You did exactly what the assignment was meant to do: stretch your abilities. Even though it wasn't fully successful, that concentrated ball of light you made did get you much farther than you would have in any other case, so we can call it a success. Though it took off a good deal of your invisibility temporarily, I'm sure you can find a use for it in the future."

Weakly, she returned his smile.

Back in her room that evening, she tried again to recreate the warm ball as she sat before her vanity. After blinding herself several times with flashes, she toppled back onto her shag carpet to brood.

It was obvious what was different from then and now. Back then she had been freezing and in pain, both mentally and physically, as she pushed herself to the limit. In the comfort of her favorite silky pajamas and in the privacy and comfort of her own room, that certain something, that needle-like focus and the giant strength behind it, were missing, leaving her light free to bounce all over the room in the usual flash rather than concentrated into her palms, or wherever, theoretically.

"Maybe I could go outside naked?" She bit her lip. Would it be cold enough? Probably only cold enough to be uncomfortable, especially given how used to it she was after skittering around everyone's windows at night. Speaking of which, she hadn't done that in a while, having been scarred by the whole Bakugo experience. Her checkups on her classmates could probably go weekly by now anyways unless something else came up.

Figuring she'd think more on it as she went, she shimmied out of her silkies (which was the main reason she liked them so much, they came off like water) and headed to her window. She took handfuls of her paisley pink curtains and pulled them aside-

To see Bakugo toeing onto the scene.

Both the sudden curtain open and her shriek sent him toppling over the side.

His hands caught the railing. Boss reflexes, like Mina.

Toru threw open her window.

"What the heck are you doing?"

"YOU NEARLY KILLED ME!"

"Just pull yourself up already, you got the arms of a god, don't you?"

Emitting his usual stream of profanity, he pulled himself up with ease and, without so much as a warning, proceeded to crawl through her window. She scrambled out of the way just in time to avoid getting her face smashed in by his skull.

"Ask much?"

"You didn't." He all but slammed her window closed behind him, all growl, all scowl-the usual. "I can't believe you're still alive after crawling on that shitstain excuse of a ledge, and down a floor, no less. What are you, a gecko?"

"More like a ninja." Doing her best to ignore the screaming, jittering mess her insides had become (he was in her room HE in her ROOM WhhhhYYHYY?), she set to picking up her pajamas and slipping them back on.

He caught her pajama pants rise and quickly looked away.

"Don't get any ideas from this, I just came to give you back your book," which he pulled from one of the large pockets of his cargo jeans.

"And you couldn't use the front door because…?"

"Revenge. And I don't need asswipes thinking I'm actually associated with you."

"Aw, jee, you're making me blush, Kacchan." Or more like he was, and all in the ears. Cute.

His face snapped back to her direction, where she was pulling down her pajama top. "Don't call me Kacchan!" But then his eyes fell on her chest and his head snapped away so fast she swore she heard his neck pop.

She had to smile at that. "What? Never been around a girl wearing no bra?" And satin was rather clingy.

"Stop being a perv and take your damn book already."

"Sure sure," she stepped forward and took it. "Though, you know, one is usually a pervert because of behaviors towards the body of the opposite sex. I believe what I'm doing right now is flirting." And on a whim of daring, she ruffled a hand through his hair.

He jerked back, teeth bared, and actually _hissed._

"I feel _nothing_ for you, Ginger Tits. Touch me again and you lose your hands."

"Sorry. Couldn't resist." Even as it stung, she smiled. "And don't worry, I've no intention of going out with you either. You're just too fun to tease."

That made him stare. His surprise wore a bit off his fang.

And for the first time in her life, she got to see a moment of flustered Bakugo.

"Then what-what the hell was with the chocolates and that sappy ass look on your face-" and the fluster was gone, replaced by the usual snarl. "Of course. You're just getting kicks from screwing with me, aren't you? Going to add that to your giggle notes?"

Horror panged her so hard, the next words flew out of her mouth before her brain had even registered what they were.

"NO! I love you!"

He stared, all snarl gone, gaping.

Heat flooded her system and she was sure, if she were visible, her face would have been the same color as her hair.

And yet...it couldn't get any worse than this...and it wasn't like it would go anywhere. He already knew her secrets. He had come all this way, given her back a book she had desperately been wanting back…

She grabbed fistfuls of her loose hair and hid behind it, clenching her eyes shut. Pain bubbled up in her chest: a pain born from the simultaneous birth and death of an incredible hope that he could have ever returned her feelings. Because even if he did return her feelings, it wouldn't go anywhere. It just couldn't.

She was, after all, invisible, and no man would be held by a beauty they couldn't see.

"I love you," her voice shook. "I really do, and I don't want you to change, even if everyone says that you should. What I mean is I can't date anyone. It'd be the stupidest thing next to jumping into a snow rescue naked, except...except I wouldn't be able to survive that stupid choice."

By then, she had gone to all but a whisper. She didn't want to look at him. It hurt too much. Too much. Especially if there was even a hint of that softness she had seen while he ate chocolates and watched that silly romance movie.

"What? You got some fucked up quirk that kills you if you get with a guy?"

She opened her mouth to deny it, then closed it. "I guess you could say that. Emotionally speaking. "

"Ugh, you're such a…" but he stopped, grumbling in his throat for a moment.

The silence that followed gave space to the tears burning in her eyes. She gathered more fistfuls of hair to cover more and more of whatever part of her faced him, imagining she could cover every bit of her emotionally smarting body. She wanted to hide.

"So you don't have to worry," she pushed out with as much cheer as she could. "I just enjoy seeing you happy, that's all. I never wanted anything from you, I'm not going to perv watch you or anything, but if you don't believe me, that's fine too. I never needed you to like me or even think well of me, I'm here to be a hero, not anyone's girlfriend-"

"Jeeze, stop yapping, I get it."

A hot hand wrapped about her wrist. She squeaked as she felt her veil of hair being parted, pushed up out of the way, and caramel breath brushing across her face.

And a heartbreakingly soft and warm mouth pressing against her own.

Her eyes popped open in time to see streams of ghost-like red curls vanishing to reveal Bakugo's up-close lashes and spikes of gray-blond hair.

He parted from her after a few seconds, puffing her face with more caramel, only to come back to kiss her again.

Then he pulled back, bottom lip jutted out in a face-cutting frown and a softened glare out from beneath storm-cloud like eyebrows. He folded his arms over his chest.

"I don't know what kind of shitty men you got in your life, but I'm not scum enough to cheat on someone just because I can't see her boobs whenever I want. Get over your stupid problems."

She stared. Unblinking, something quivering and powerful and like fire starting from the soles of her feet and shooting up to the top of her head.

Then she let out a great sob and melted to the floor.

Bakugo flinched. "What the hell!"

"So-sor-sor-"she couldn't even get it out.

"Stop crying! Stop it!"

But something had thoroughly shattered in her and, no matter how hard she tried, they just kept bubbling up. It sounded nasty, and soon she'd start crying out of hysteria instead of whatever this was because Bakugo could only put up with so much insane girl problems for so long before he gave up on her, even before he'd begun.

When he let out an explosive sigh, she knew that was it. Now he'd leave. She'd done it, ruined the only chance she never even dared to have-

A rustle of jeans and thump came as he sat down and shoved her, none-to-gently, against his chest.

"You're a masochist," he grumbled. "You like me for all the wrong reasons. You're diary or whatever makes you out into a sicko, you know that? Though it is freaking funny."

She snuffled and wiggled enough so she could breathe without her nose being mashed against his chest. "You're funny."

"And I can crush a man's skull with my pinky and probably be a genius physicist if I wanted to and you're hung up over the names I call people?"

She sniffed. "You're pretty?"

And with that, he threw back his head and laughed as she had never heard him do before: deep from his belly and without a single note of scorn.

"Yeah," he said, breathless. "I'm damn pretty. But you. You're fucking gorgeous."

**Note: Random trivia I found out while writing this: nitroglycerin smells like burnt sugar. Cooked sugar=caramel. You're welcome.**


	14. An Invisible Girl is a Man's Dream

14

The next morning, she expected Bakugo to ignore her. The whole "because my love life ain't no one's business" jazz. But when he sauntered in, the first thing he did was flash a wide smirk in her direction and swagger over.

"God smiles on you more even yet, Titties. Your boyfriend got you a present."

All talking ceased, making the rustle of the tissue paper in the blue and gold gift bag as it thumped on her desk even louder.

Both unbelievably pleased and stunned, she at least remembered to play along.

"Oh dear, are we sure god did this? I thought it was my sweet charms."

Bakugo snorted. "Your charms got nothing on me. It's god."

She snorted, even as she tugged out tissue paper. Along with the paper came a tiny, beautiful leather bound book with gold emblazon swirls pressed across its soft cover. It came complete with a tiny brass hatch to keep it closed.

She gasped, "So pretty!" and forthwith opened it to thumb through the lined ivory pages.

"You know what it's for," he said, his smirk even wider now with how pleased he was with himself.

"And I imagine you want me to share?" she said, trying to sound coy even though her happy smile was probably pushing through.

"Is this happening?" whispered Kaminari. "Like, really happening."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure this isn't a dream," said someone dryly.

"Did she just let him call her Titties…?"

Midoriya, on the other hand, full on beamed from where he had twisted round in his chair.

"Congratulations, Kacchan!"

"Whatever, nerd."

Momo, Mina, and Ochaco all exchanged happy, if somewhat surprised looks of joy.

"You're really dating?" squeaked Mina. "Oh, please say yes, that means our plan worked!"

Bakugo's eyes narrowed on them. "Huh?"

Toru, however, was too busy covertly rubbing her face on her beautiful new leather journal. It smelled like leather oil and new book. "This calls for the perfect pen. I so want a perfect pen now, yes yes yes!"

Bakugo huffed, his attention back to her, and that smirk returning. He reached out and somehow found her head on the first try, ruffling it lightly.

"Then a freaking perfect pen it is."

"Hey! You're displacing my pins!"

"Good," he grunted, probably because his fingers were then able to feel out several curls to tangle themselves in. Once he had his feel, without further ado, he plopped himself down in the empty desk next to her-usually Koda's-and mounted his feet ontop it.

Koda, who walked in a mere breath later with Iida, all but shuddered at the sight of Bakugo in his seat. Without protest, he scurried to Bakugo's abandoned desk. Iida was not so easily intimidated.

"Bakugo, class is starting in forty-five seconds, get to your assigned seat!"

Bakugo just leaned his head back, letting the whites of his eyes show with his teeth. "Eh?"

"Don't start trouble!"

"I don't know, rep, seems my seat's already filled."

Koda shrunk.

Midoriya just sighed. "Just let him, Iida. I'll explain later, yeah?"

Iida looked positively affronted, and Kirishima, who had been watching all this quietly, though not without looking like he was fighting not to explode into cheering, jumped up to help quell him as well. But before he could say something more, Kaminari crowed, "Bakugo's found a girlfriend!"

"Yeah, probably because she's the only one desperate enough to take a guy even if he calls her 'Boobs," said Sero quietly.

Toru froze mid-sniff of her book as the tension in class hyped up several degrees. Midoriya's legs pinched in like a girl suddenly needing to pee and half the class sucked in through their teeth.

Bakugo slowly turned his head, frightening in his deceptive calm.

"What was that?" he asked, uncharacteristically quiet.

Sero flinched. "L-l-look, that's gotta be the only reason she'd-I mean, come on, man, you don't go calling your girl Titties, and in front of her entire class, that just ain't right."

"Pretty sure what kind of relationship you have, though," said Mineta, the jealousy in his voice evident.

Bakugo's lips curled, and Toru swore his hair even rose.

"I thought I said my love life wasn't any of your business, you useless sack of extras. I do what I want where I want, it ain't my fault your life is so sad you gotta guzzle up whatever you can get from everyone else. And fucking relax, Deku, you're gonna pee yourself!"

Midoriya flinched, but actually looked affronted. "I am not!"

"When you lot are finished," came a tired voice from the front.

The tension dropped cold as the class looked to Aiyazawa, whose expression had darkened to villainous proportions.

"Leave your teen drama at the door," he growled. "And that includes you, Bakugo. Flirt on your own time, not mine."

Bakugo actually had the gall to sneer ever so slightly. "Whatever, Sensei, but there ain't no rule against it."

"And there isn't a rule against me turning off your girlfriend's quirk in class either."

Toru didn't know where Aiyazawa got off throwing that same threat around, and at Bakugo, of all people. Was that even a threat?

But, to her surprise, Bakugo stiffened and moved his feet off the desk.

"Now get back to your seat."

Without so much as a grunt, though clenching his jaw so hard Toru could hear his teeth squeak, Bakugo grabbed his bag, got up, and stomped back up to his original seat, which Koda had fled the moment it was mentioned.

Mina crushed her face into her hands to stifle her snickers. Ochaco was red in the face and hiding her mouth behind her hand like unto Midoriya, while Momo just smiled.

"What's going on?" Toru whispered as Aiyazawa got underway with school announcements.

"Isn't it obvious?" Mina hissed. At Toru's silence, she just rolled her eyes. "Oh no, the last time I helped you with your boy, I got chewed out, I am not making that mistake again."

Though she got an idea later when he ambushed her before lunch with a slam of his hand on the locker next to hers. The critical apex move to the domineering loom position.

She wished he could see how unimpressed she was. Hopefully, her lack of flinching conveyed that enough.

He lowered his head to shoulder level, much as he had done to Ochaco.

"You practice your little glowing ball trick around no one, capice?"

She frowned. "Day one and you're trying that? No, you've gotta give me something good, my little hedgehog."

He started back so hard, she had to laugh, earning her a growl.

"Don't mess with me," he said, losing the inside voice he must have tried so hard to do.

"I gave you my journal," she said, sneaking in a pinch of his nose and totally ruining his 'I'm the alpha man looming over you' when he recoiled back. "You knew that's what I'd do. Just tell me why, maybe bribe me with something, and I'll be glad to comply. I am your 'girlfriend' after all." And because she was just having way too much stupid fun with how over the top he was, she slid forward and let her breasts rub ever so slightly against his chest. His fault for looming over her.

Right on que, his face blossomed with red. To add a cherry to the top, a little 'bwoof' of sparks and smoke came from his hands. If anyone on their way to lunch or at their lockers had been ignoring them, they certainly weren't now.

She nearly tore her throat holding back her laughter. Only years of practice kept it down, but it didn't keep it silent.

He smacked a still smoking hand to his face.

"Don't. You. Ever. Again."

"I love you." And because she was afraid she had been the one to go too far, "and I was going to practice alone in my room anyways, but please tell me."

"Like hell."

She ducked in close and lowered to a whisper just above the white noise of the hall. "You really meant it when you said I was gorgeous, huh? Are you trying to hide me from everyone?"

Bakugo, never back down from a fight Bakugo, pivoted on his foot and marched away, hands swinging with determination at his sides and shoulders hunched up to his scarlet ears.

"Is that a yes?"

"Fuck you!"

"You seriously like that?" came Ochaco, who slid to her side the moment Bakugo had rushed off. She made no attempts to hide her wince.

"Oh, come on, it's hilarious," said Mina. "Did you see Toru's move with the boobs? It's totally the boobs."

Toru groaned. "It's not the boobs, and it's one of those secret things so don't even ask."

"It's not like you tell us anything juicy anyways," said Ochaco with a pout.

"Yeah yeah, whatever, let's celebrate!" crowed Mina. "You, you, me, Momo, rooftop, I'm buying, sweet buns on the house!"

As Mina herded them in the direction of the stairs, Ochaco gave Toru a curious glance from where she leaned back onto Mina's right hand, Toru pressed back into her left.

"What was that book about, anyway?" she asked.

Toru just smiled. "Like I said: it's one of my secrets."

**Author's Notes: Thinking of reading some of my stories out loud for people to listen to while quarantined. **


End file.
